


FIRST VLOG OF 2016: The Zimmermann-Leroy Ice Empire, Rum Apple Pie, and more!

by lily_winterwood



Series: Intersections [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Actual Obnoxious Zimmermann Cousin JJ Leroy, Gen, M/M, Meet the Family, New Year's Eve, chirps for days, figure skating, the endless roast of Jean-Jacques Leroy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2016-11-28
Packaged: 2018-09-02 19:37:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8680804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lily_winterwood/pseuds/lily_winterwood
Summary: Hey y’all! It’s me again. The holidays have been so busy lately that I’ve barely had time to talk about anything that’s happened so far, much less walk people through how to make MooMaw’s buttered rum apple pie like I promised I would! But never fear. We’ll get to that in a moment. I mean, based on all the comments I’ve been getting, y’all are more interested in my personal life anyway...A small segment from Bitty's New Year's vlog entry.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of the same 'verse as my other OMGCP/YoI crossover, but can be read as a standalone. It also shows my predictions for how the GPF might turn out in YoI, so there's some speculation that might need to be retconned later down the line. :)
> 
> **EDIT: as of December 22, 2016, this fic has been retconned to reflect the results of Episode 12! (Although Bitty doesn't comment on JJ's SP)
> 
> Also I couldn't find someone who speaks Quebecois to really turn the tiny portion of French dialogue into something more Quebec-y, so it's fairly standard French in that segment. Will provide translations.

_Hey y’all! It’s me again. The holidays have been so busy lately that I’ve barely had time to talk about anything that’s happened so far, much less walk people through how to make MooMaw’s buttered rum apple pie like I promised I would! But never fear. We’ll get to that in a moment. I mean, based on all the comments I’ve been getting, y’all are more interested in my personal life anyway._

_Well, Christmas was just lovely. I spent it at home with my family and had to deal with my aunts asking me for the umpteenth time why I hadn’t brought home a girl yet. It was ridiculous! But since I’m not out to my family just yet (and probably won’t be for some time) I just had to laugh it off again. Well. One of these days they’ll know I am seeing someone… just, you know, not a girl…_

_In any case, almost as soon as Christmas was over I got to spend the New Year up in Montreal! The Zimmermanns invited me to their New Year’s Eve party, and of course I had to go because Jack asked_ so nicely…

* * *

“Merry Christmas, Bits,” said Jack, his voice staticky over the phone. He was in a rather dim room, with the faintest sounds of a party on the other side of the door.

“Merry Christmas, Jack,” replied Bitty, smiling as he leaned against his pillows. “Sounds like there’s quite a party going on out there. I’m not dragging you away from something, am I?”

“You know me and parties, Bits, I’d really rather talk to you instead,” said Jack, and part of Bitty seriously wanted to bury his face in the pillows; his cheeks were so on _fire_. “Cousin JJ has been going at the karaoke machine for the past half an hour.” There was a pause. “I think he’s _still_ singing.”

“Is Cousin JJ any _good_ at karaoke?” wondered Bitty.

Jack snorted. “He’s not _bad_ , but I’m pretty sure you could beat him.”

“You flatterer, you.”

“Well, he could do with being taken down a peg or two sometimes.”

“So you’re willing to use me to teach him a lesson? I thought you _cared_.”

Jack snorted. “I’m sure if you met Cousin JJ, you’d end up challenging him yourself.”

“Really.” Bitty smirked. A rather challenging glint came into Jack’s eyes at that.

“Why don’t you come up here for New Year’s Eve, eh? Meet him for yourself. I mean, he’s a figure skater; you two will have plenty to talk about.”

“Jack Laurent Zimmermann, just because your cousin JJ and I are both into figure skating doesn’t mean —” Bitty cut off suddenly, connecting the dots. _No way_. “Wait. Cousin _JJ_? As in, placed-third-at-Grand-Prix-Final Cousin _JJ_?”

“Yeah, he wouldn’t stop blowing up the family group chat about it,” said Jack.

Bitty gaped at him, feeling as if the world had been pulled out from under his feet. After a moment, he regained his voice again, and asked, “Why have you never mentioned, in all of our time together, that Jean-Jacques Leroy was your _cousin_?”

Jack seemed rather sheepish about that. “Sometimes I willfully forget that he’s related,” he replied.

“ _Jack_! He’s like the best figure skater in Canada!”

“He has a theme song, and from what I can tell he’s still trying to sing it downstairs.”

“ _Jack_.”

Jack sighed. “Look, Bits, I’m sorry I never told you. You know I don’t talk about my family that much anyway.”

“You also said you don’t follow figure skating, and yet you have a cousin who’s gotten _medals_ at the Grand Prix Finals,” Bitty pointed out, hating that his tone was coming out a lot more bitter than he really felt. Sure, he was a bit mad, knowing now how much of his boyfriend he still had left to learn. But Jack had a point — Bitty rarely even heard Jack talk about his _dad_ , much less an obnoxious figure skating cousin.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Jack. I know I have no right to pry into parts of your private life that you don’t want to show me.”

Jack shrugged, his expression unreadable in the dim lighting and low resolution on the phone. “Like I said, I don’t talk about Cousin JJ much, and I still don’t follow figure skating.”

“Yeah,” said Bitty. “I guess so. And I don’t know why I’m surprised; you referred to Mario Lemieux as ‘Uncle Mario’ once.”

Jack laughed, sheepish. “So, then, are you willing to come up for New Year’s Eve? You’ll get to meet Cousin JJ.”

Bitty laughed as well, a soft warm feeling tingling in his chest at the sight of Jack’s beseeching expression. “Yeah, I’d love to,” he said, and Jack’s smile broadened in reply.

* * *

_I mean, there’s no way I’m passing up some chance to really hang out with what seems to be a long line of ice sports royalty, right?_

_Anyway, after Jack dropped that bombshell on me, I took the liberty of looking it up. Jack’s Wikipedia page — of course he has one, what did you expect — doesn’t mention anything about Jean-Jacques Leroy. But then again, his Wikipedia page is still relatively short and out of date. I mean, someone still hasn’t edited out the kinds of drugs that he was suspected of taking while in the Q. Which, honestly, I’m surprised at. I’d have thought someone from Samwell would’ve gone in and fixed things up for him or something._

_But I did find a mention of the Leroy family in Bad Bob’s article, and Jean-Jacques’s also has a mention of the Zimmermanns in his. So it’s been discussed before, just… not as widely as I would have expected (or hoped)._

_So two days after Christmas, I flew up to Montreal…_

* * *

Jack’s face was the first thing Bitty saw in the arrivals area at Trudeau Airport. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses, ostensibly as some sort of way to deter people from recognising him. But there really was no mistaking that surly grimace, nor the way said grimace could morph so quickly into a brilliant smile meant just for him.

Oh, _lord_ , how Bitty wanted to kiss him. But he settled instead for a brief, rather bro-ish hug. He then shook Alicia Zimmermann’s hand, and relinquished his duffel bag to Jack at her insistence. Together, they chivvied him out of the airport, Alicia talking avidly about all of the things one could do in Montreal, and how Jack was sure to take him to all the good places, and how was he doing at Samwell?

“Oh!” exclaimed Bitty when he realised that the last bit was actually a question. “Well. It’s been pretty great! I miss Samwell, even though I just finished finals like, a week ago, and at that time I couldn’t wait to get out of there for break.”

Alicia laughed at that. By now they were in the car, the airport a silver gleam in the distance behind them. “Part of alum life is just constantly missing Samwell, I think,” she said. “You’re a junior now, right?”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” said Bitty, though he was smiling. Jack, who had opted to sit in the back with him, covered his hand in his own and squeezed. Bitty felt a euphoric lightening of his chest in response.

“Any plans for study abroad?”

“No, not really. I wouldn’t even know where to start or what to study, and I’d also miss playoffs.”

Alicia nodded. “Oh, definitely,” she said. Next to Bitty, Jack stifled a grin. Bitty scowled at him in return; the look on Jack’s face clearly was saying that the boy formulating some chirps.

* * *

_Jack’s family has this townhouse in Montreal and it is_ gorgeous _. Everything is so well-decorated. I mean, I’m not surprised, since of course Bad Bob would have the money for interior decorators. But I am definitely jealous. Every room is worthy of Pinterest. Even the coat closet._

_I spent most of the days leading up to the New Year’s Eve party just chilling. They have this amazing and well-stocked kitchen, so I thought I’d contribute to the party’s food selection by making some mini-pies._

_The problem with cooking in advance is that you invariably end up eating the food ahead of time anyway. And if you don’t eat the food yourself, then skating robots with bottomless stomachs will. Did I mention that the Zimmermanns are ice sports royalty? Yeah. There’s more than just Jack and Bad Bob and Jack’s Cousin JJ on that list. I mean, the Leroy side of the family are all world-famous figure skaters! And Jack’s younger cousins — JJ’s siblings — are always coming by and taking my pies almost as soon as I make them._

_It actually surprised me a little the first time they dropped by…_

* * *

“Wow! Quelque chose sent très bon!”

Jack, who had been bent over the stove, stirring it at Bitty’s direction, straightened up. “Emma? C’est toi?”

“Jackie!” There were eager footsteps. Moments later, a young girl who couldn’t have been older than fourteen came scampering into the room. “Je savais pas que tu peux cuisiner!”

“Euh, je peux pas, mon ami ici m’a appris.” Jack smiled at Bitty, who had paused in mixing his pie crust.  

“Ami?” echoed the girl, turning to Bitty. He gave a weak smile. “De ton équipe?”

“À Samwell, ouais.” Jack said, nodding. “Bits, introduce yourself.”

Bitty blinked. “Um. Mon français est,” he swallowed, trying to find the word. “Très… mauvais.”

“It’s not that bad,” said the girl, switching immediately to English (to Bitty’s great relief and shame). “I’m Jack’s cousin Emma!”

“I’m Eric,” replied Bitty, quickly wiping his hands on his apron so he could shake her hand.

“You’re Jack’s _friend_ , eh?” the girl’s grin was sly. “He never brings _friends_ over.”

“ _Emma_ ,” scolded Jack, though his exasperation was tinged with fondness.

“Oh come on, JJ is always saying how you have a _chum_ now, he saw you texting during dinner at Christmas. You can’t hide him from us _forever_.”

“You can tell JJ to mind his own business,” sniffed Jack, turning back to the stove.

“I suppose it’d be easier to say you have a _blonde_.” Emma’s grin only grew wider at the suggestion, and though Bitty wasn’t exactly sure what she meant, the tone of her voice made everything pretty clear.

He decided to change the subject. “How old are you exactly?”

“Thirteen!” Emma did a twirl that told Bitty that she was indeed part of the Zimmermann-Leroy Ice Empire. “You used to play hockey with Jack?”

“Yeah,” said Bitty, smiling. “He’s very good.”

“But he has no grace.” Emma opened the fridge, peering around at its contents. “And he is always scuffing up the ice.”

“Who’s the one who wears toe picks, eh?” Jack demanded from the stove.

“You have something against toe picks, Jack?” wondered Bitty, causing his boyfriend to drop his spoon into the pot and Emma to laugh.

“I’m just saying, hockey skates don’t do nearly as much damage to the ice as figure skates do,” Jack muttered as he doubled over the stove to try and fish out the spoon from the broth.

“We have this argument every time.” Emma rolled her eyes, and took a pitcher of milk out of the fridge. “Can you get me a glass?”

Jack made a grumbling noise, but abandoned his fishing in order to get a glass from one of the cupboards. Bitty laughed.

“You make him get things off high shelves for you, too?” asked Emma as she poured herself a glass.

“I pay his labour with pie, so it’s a fair exchange,” replied Bitty.

“Not to my nutritionist it’s not,” Jack muttered as he finally came up with the spoon. “Bittle, should I keep stirring?”

“You know you don’t need to _keep_ on stirring, right? It’s not like it’s going to blow up if you stop.”

“You could have told me that about three minutes ago.” Jack put the spoon into the sink and turned to where Bitty was wrapping up the dough. “What now?”

“We let it stew.” Bitty turned to the stove and lowered the heat. “Emma, would you like some pie?”

“I would love some pie! Jack is always talking about the pies at Samwell. Were they yours?”

“They better have been,” replied Bitty.

“As if I would eat anyone else’s pies.” Jack rolled his eyes.

Bitty went to the side counter, where several mini-pies sat cooling. “Apple or strawberry rhubarb?”

“One of each!” Emma’s eyes were bright.

“Whipped cream or ice cream?”

“I can get that myself.” Emma turned to the fridge again.

“Would you like it heated?”

“Yup!”

Moments later, she was polishing off her fork, an empty plate in front of her. She hadn’t consumed just one of each kind. She’d had four. Of each.

“Please make more for the New Year’s Eve party! I bet my brothers would love some!”

Bitty wasn’t sure if he could get his eyes to look less like dinner plates if he tried. Behind him, Jack was laughing quietly. _That boy_.

* * *

_Now, I don’t know if Jack thought he was being hilarious by deliberately omitting this crucial detail, or if he had just forgotten. In either case, he never told me that his cousins could eat at the speed of_ light. _And this was just his 13-year-old cousin, Emma Leroy. Y’know. The junior ladies bronze medalist at the 2015 Canadian Championships._

_Clearly baking for the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team did not prepare me at all for feeding these children._

_In any case, I was well-armed with many, many mini-pies for the New Year’s Eve party! But how was I supposed to know that no amount of stress baking would ever prepare me for meeting the 2015 Grand Prix Bronze Medalist Jean-Jacques Leroy?_

* * *

On New Year’s Eve, Bitty spent a good part of the first hour of the party upstairs, staring at himself in the mirror.

“Can’t pick a bowtie, eh?” Jack asked, poking his head into the bedroom. Bitty had been put into one of the guest bedrooms as a formality; the fact that he and Jack were an item was known to Jack’s parents. The rest of the family, though…

“Look, I’m just trying to craft a good first impression for when I meet the rest of your world-class skater family here,” Bitty slicked some more gel into his hair.

“You look fine,” replied Jack, now leaning against the doorframe.

Bitty huffed, rolling his eyes at Jack through the mirror. _Honestly, how can one boy be so uplifting and so frustrating at the same time_?

Almost as if he heard that, Jack laughed. He was in a collared shirt and a hideous Christmas sweater that Bitty wasn’t sure if he wanted to treasure or burn. “Trust me, Bits, no one here is going to judge you if you can’t artfully drape your scarf just right. I mean, Cousin JJ spends most of the figure skating season in the same Canadian Tire uniform.”

“Yes, but Cousin JJ also has his own clothing line.”

Jack snorted. “We chirped him for _weeks_ about JJ Style when it first came out. Believe me, you dress better than him most of the time.”

“I don’t know if I should take your word for it, given that you keep choosing to withhold crucial information about your family from me,” retorted Bitty as he adjusted his bow tie.

Once downstairs, Bitty was immediately confronted with the sheer number of people at the party. It wasn’t just family members; apparently the Zimmermann New Year’s Eve party was more of a Who’s Who in hockey than anything else.

So of course he and Jack had to keep a couple inches between them, and each of those inches burned away at Bitty’s heart.

“JJ!” Jack called, as he adroitly steered Bitty towards the table with the refreshments. There was a gaggle of children at one end, clustered around the various desserts. Bitty noticed with some pride that a sizeable dent had been made in his mini-pie stock. Though he suspected that Jack’s own cousins had something to do with that. Emma and William, Jack’s younger cousins, had swiftly become just as — if not more — notorious than the Samwell Men’s Hockey team for clearing platters of pie in one sitting.

But then they somehow manage to skate it all off moments later. On the times he had accompanied them to the rink, Bitty had felt exhausted just looking at their routines. William, who had gotten medals at the past three Junior World Championships, was clearly gearing up for a Senior debut. And Emma was probably going to go for the Junior Grand Prix next season.

Bitty came back to earth rather abruptly when he heard his name again. He turned, and Jack was smiling at him, nodding towards the crowd. Bitty followed his gaze, just in time to see Jean-Jacques Leroy detach himself from the crowd and come over to them.

Upon seeing the two cousins together, Bitty was immediately struck by how similar they looked. Sure, Cousin JJ was tanner, lither, and had an undercut, but his eyes were strikingly similar to Jack’s, and he carried himself with the same sort of casual grace that seemed to accompany everyone in the family.

“What’s up? Jackie said he was bringing a friend.” JJ winked. “I wonder if your baking is as good as your looks.”

Bitty could almost hear Jack’s teeth gritting, but he couldn’t help blushing all the same. “Well, aren’t _you_ a flirt. Cousin JJ, I take it?”

“The one and only!” JJ’s grin somehow managed to get even more roguish. “And you must be Eric Bittle, the figure skater.”

“Actually, I used to be —”

“Oh, I know.” JJ shrugged. “But that’s how he introduced you to us in the family chat, so…” He trailed off, looking pensive for a brief moment, before perking up again. “So do you still skate competitively?”

“No,” said Bitty. “I quit in high school, after my family moved.”

“How far did you get in competitions?”

“Southern Junior Regionals.”

“Ah.”

Bitty blinked. JJ sounded a little disappointed. “Excuse me?”

“If you’d gone past Junior Nationals, we might have met back then and not even known! In fact, a lot of the younger people in Seniors this season were probably in the Junior Grand Prix, too.”

Bitty shrugged, feeling inadequate again just for not being at the level that JJ must have expected him to be at. Almost as if he sensed that, Jack cleared his throat.

“Bittle here is a good hockey player now,” he said rather pointedly. “He’s been known to use his figure skating to avoid being checked.”

Bitty snorted. “You do a double Axel in a game _once_ , and _no one_ lets you live it down.”

“We all just thought it was a more sophisticated version of the ol’ Bittle spinorama at first.”

Bitty rolled his eyes. “If you want to make the double Axel a hockey play, I’ll gladly teach you.”

“Well!” interjected JJ, almost as if he couldn’t bear to have the attention diverted from him for a moment longer. “Do you still follow figure skating, then?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” replied Bitty. “Congratulations on your bronze in the GPF.”

“I’ll be going for gold in the Nationals in January. You’ll come cheer, right?”

“Well, I might be in training, but we’ll see?” Bitty shot a helpless look at Jack, who shrugged.

If JJ was at all disappointed at that response, he certainly hid it with a wide smile. “I could get you tickets if you want. Just let me know!”

“Thanks?” Bitty smiled. At that moment, someone tapped a microphone to get people’s attentions. The three of them turned to see Bad Bob by a set of speakers and a screen.

“Oh good, karaoke!” JJ exclaimed. He swiped a glass of champagne off a passing server.

“You better not be singing your theme song again,” Jack warned.

“Please. You need to learn what good music is, old man,” scoffed JJ. Bitty snorted at that. “See, even Eric agrees with me.”

“I was told that I should challenge you to karaoke,” Bitty said, before Jack could react to that chirp. “Jack said I’d totally wipe the floor with you.”

“He said that, did he?” A determined grin came onto JJ’s face, and he downed the flute of champagne in one go. “You’re on.”

* * *

_So yes, after I managed to get a couple drinks in me, JJ and I had our long-awaited karaoke duel. And it was every bit as terribly s’awesome as y’all are imagining._

_You know that feeling you have when you’re cheering on one friend on this one team, and then a friend on the opposing team wants you to cheer for them, too? Take that feeling, add alcohol, and then make it do a karaoke battle with that other friend. Because that was all I could feel during mine with JJ. I really_ wanted _to cheer for him at some point, y’know? And I suppose Canadian Nationals would probably be the best place to, if I could get over feeling like I’m cheating long enough to do it._

_Because, as y’all can remember from my previous vlogs, I’m rooting for Yuuri Katsuki this season. I mean, who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Also, there’s the kiss at the Cup of China. I’m sorry, Jack’s cousin, you’ve been beaten by Yuuri Katsuki again._

_Anyway, after karaoke some of us kids decided to go to the local rink — which was of course donated by Bad Bob, so he and his family could always get into it after hours — to mess around on the ice together. And of course_ I _had to go. I mean, I couldn’t stay behind, not when an absolute sweetheart named Emma Leroy was begging me to skate with her._

* * *

Bitty really didn’t know what he was doing at this rink, surrounded by kids who had all probably been born with skates on. Even the youngest kids there (who were still at least old enough to go off without parental supervision) were slipping and sliding around on the rink like ducklings in puddles.

Jack was mostly taking laps around the rink, ostensibly waiting for some of the older kids to decide whether or not to start up a game of hockey. Bitty considered joining him, but then Emma skated up to him, a challenging grin on her face.

“Want to do a jump battle with us, Eric?” she asked.

Bitty blinked. “I haven’t done one of those in years.”

“Come on! It’ll be fun. Can you do quads?”

“Barely.”

“Well, I can’t land any!” Emma grinned widely. “We should get Jackie to join us, if it’ll make you feel better.”

“I don’t know; he’s wearing hockey skates. It might not turn out well for him.”

“Jackie doesn’t even know a Salchow from a loop despite having the three of us as his cousins,” cut in William as he skated over to them. “Come on, Eric, it’s no fun when it’s just us.”

Bitty sighed. “If I make a fool out of myself, it’s all you guys’ fault.”

“Oh, please. It’s not like we’ll be judging you.” William rolled his eyes. He was already skating back to centre ice, where JJ was waiting.

Bitty sighed and nodded. He then grabbed the thermos of warm cider at the edge of the rink, took a couple sips, and headed out to centre ice, too. It burned all the way down his throat, but the warmth felt encouraging all the same.

JJ went first, launching into a quad Lutz right off the bat. “Now that’s JJ style!” he declared as he skated over to them.

 _Way to make the rest of us feel bad_ , thought Bitty, resisting the urge to facepalm.

But JJ’s siblings didn’t seem fazed at all. “You call that _JJ style_? You barely cleared the fence, bro,” chirped William.

“Yeah, mum could’ve done that in her _sleep_!” added Emma.

“It didn’t look that bad to me,” said Bitty.

“I like _you_ ,” said JJ. “Come on, Will, you think you can do better than the king?”

“Please! I could land a quad Sal with a nicer free leg than yours!” And William proceeded to do just that. Bitty rubbed at his temples. _These children are ridiculous_.

“Your landing was crunchy,” said JJ.

“Because _you_ messed up the ice, stupid,” chirped William in response. “Come on, Eric, your turn.”

Bitty heaved a sigh. “ _Really_? Do I have to?”

“No, but then we get to chirp you about it for the rest of the night,” said William.

“Since when was chirping a thing in figure skating?” wondered Bitty.

“Come on, our uncle and cousin are hockey players. Something’s bound to rub off, eh?”

Bitty groaned, and started ‘round the rink. He could feel the eyes of the three Leroy siblings on his form as he went. What was that again about not judging? Because he certainly felt like he was being judged.

He launched into a triple axel, and just barely managed to stick the landing. But instead of chirping, he got applause. Emma was grinning at him when he returned to where they were.

“You’re not bad for someone who quit,” she said.

Bitty wasn’t quite sure if that was a compliment or not. “...Thanks?”

“No problem!” Emma gave a small twirl, and then headed out for her jump. Bitty watched her go, only being jerked out of his reverie by a hand on his shoulder.

It was Jack. “I see you got roped into one of their jump battles,” he said.

“They said they sometimes make you join,” Bitty said, as Emma demonstrated a perfect triple Lutz.

“Yeah, usually as part of JJ’s revenge for my chirping.” Jack laughed, tucking his hands into his jeans. “They tried teaching me the jumps once. I still don’t think I can tell any of them apart, much less land them.”

“Well, lots of these jumps are harder to do in hockey skates.”

JJ chose that moment to butt in. “Joining us, Jackie? Might as well practice your jumps, eh?”

Jack scoffed. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Come on!” exclaimed Emma. “It’ll be fun!”

“For you, maybe. For me, less so.”

“It can’t possibly be worse than fighting on the ice like you did in that last game,” JJ remarked.

“I wasn’t _fighting_ in that scrum, if you wanted to know,” said Jack, scowling.

“Still. You should show your chum how much we’ve tried to teach you already.”

Jack grumbled something that Bitty suspected contained the word ‘tabarnak’ in it, and then headed out for a jump as well. Bitty wasn’t sure what kind of jump his boyfriend launched into when he came around the rink, but there was at least two rotations in it, and he didn’t fall afterwards.

“I have _no_ idea what that was,” said JJ as Jack came skating back to them. “Maybe Jackie’s just discovered a new jump.”

“We’ll have to call it the Zimmermann,” added Emma.

Bitty chuckled. Leave it to Jack to create a new figure skating jump without even intending to do so.

* * *

  _So while we were at the rink, the Leroy siblings roped me into a jump battle with them! Which of course was an excuse for JJ to show off his ‘JJ style’, which, as you probably know if you’ve ever done a basic Google search of it, is pretty much his catchphrase for everything, ever._

 _Everyone in the family chirps him for it._ Everyone.

* * *

“Grandmère could land a better Lutz than that, and she’s _dead_!”

“She was an Olympian when she was alive; that doesn’t count!”

“Goodness gracious,” said Bitty. “These children are _vicious_.”

Jack laughed sheepishly at that. “Might be because chirping JJ is the unofficial family pasttime. When the rest of the family went to cheer him on at Skate Canada they sent me some videos of them watching his performance. Nothing but laughter and chirps on the audio track. You can barely even hear the music.”

“Which I presume they chirped him about as well?”

“Oh, definitely. He took so much care in keeping it a big secret from the rest of us that it was just funny when he finally revealed it at Skate Canada. Mostly because we knew he’d collaborated with that band over the summer to do a demo of some kind. I think there’s a video of my dad singing along to it badly somewhere on the internet.”

Bitty chuckled. It was his turn next, and he executed a quad toe loop to applause from Emma and William. Clearly chirping was reserved only for family members.

Emma landed another triple Lutz after him. “See, Will? That’s how you do a Lutz landing, not whatever nonsense you were doing the last time,” she said almost as soon as she rejoined the group. “Come on, Jackie!”

“I’ll skip this round, thanks,” replied Jack.

“At least go do a bunny hop or something.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “If it gets you to shut up, Em, I will.” And he did.

“That was _adorable_.”

“If we were competing in how to stop mid-skate and change directions instead of jumps, I’d take gold,” retorted Jack.

William laughed. “Yeah, keep dreaming. You know the pool’s currently in JJ’s favour, right?”

“Pool?” echoed Bitty.

“Betting,” said Jack. “There’s a family wager somewhere about who would be first to qualify for Team Canada for the next Winter Olympics, me or JJ.”

“Would you need to win the Stanley Cup to qualify?” asked Bitty.

Jack shrugged. “I certainly don’t have money invested in it,” he replied. Up ahead, JJ was doing some sort of crazy combination spin, his gestures lithe and graceful. “Sometimes it’s easy to forget that he’s just 19.”

An entire seven years younger than Jack. Bitty whistled. “Lots of pressure on him, I guess?” he asked.

“For both of us, definitely. But even moreso for him. He kinda reminds me of myself when I was in the Q, honestly.”

“You had a clothing line called JL Style?” chirped Bitty.

Jack snorted. “I’m sure Lardo could whip something up if I asked.”

Bitty laughed, and then sobered a bit, as JJ and William both did quad toe loops (JJ landing his better, of course). “Do you think he —”

“Oh, no. At least, I hope not,” said Jack. “I like to think if he did have a problem, he’d come to me about it. I’ve told him countless times that he could come to me, in any case.”

“That’s good,” said Bitty. “It’s good to have someone who won’t judge you for that sort of thing. I mean, figure skating is probably even more stressful than hockey, since it’s all on you.”

“If he’s at all affected, you probably wouldn’t know.” Jack shrugged. “It’s part of his image.”

“Hey, Eric!” hollered Emma at that moment. “It’s your turn!”

“Coming!” Bitty called back, and went off to do another jump. Though he’d intended to pull off a quad Salchow again, he didn’t stick the landing well and only saved himself from landing on his ass with a quick touch of the ice.

As he skated back to Jack, he kept an eye on JJ, who was still practising his spins. JJ, who had an entire career ahead of him, who didn’t have to fight for a comeback or a redemption of any sort, was probably under so much more pressure to be perfect than either Jack or Yuuri Katsuki.

“You know,” said Bitty as people started talking about heading back to the house in time for the final countdown to midnight, “sometimes there’s something good in failing the first time, you know.”

“What makes you say that?” wondered Jack. They followed the other kids to the rink gate.

“People have already seen that you can’t be perfect all the time,” replied Bitty, as they put on their skate guards. He then took a seat near the thermos, reaching to unlace his skates.

“But then it’s harder to feel like you can win, with the world expecting the worst of you,” Jack pointed out as he knelt in front of Bitty, his fingers deftly undoing the laces. Bitty felt a strange dryness in his throat at the sight of Jack kneeling in front of him, and had to resist the urge to run a hand through Jack’s hair.

“W-well, doesn’t it feel better when you defy those expectations?” he wondered, as he changed into his sneakers.

Jack pursed his lips. “I think at some levels of competition, no matter what you do people aren’t going to be satisfied,” he said as he took a step back to undo his own skates.

“Ain’t that the truth,” sighed Bitty, and when Jack reached over to squeeze his hand, he squeezed back.

* * *

_So Jack and I rang in the New Year together, and with that new year, new stories are born. Sometimes they begin with resolutions, and since I’m terrible at adhering to any sort of resolution, I guess this is going to have to be the next best thing._

_Next year, I hope I can live my life best of my ability. I hope I’ll be able to continue giving joy (in the form of pies) to those who give me joy._

_And, more importantly, I hope I’ll find the chance next year to show the world that love wins above all._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> Quelque chose sent très bon! = Something smells really good!  
> Emma? C’est toi? = Emma? Is that you?  
> Je savais pas que tu peux cuisiner! = I didn't know you could cook! (apparently QF gets rid of the 'ne' at the start? But that's pretty standard for colloquial French, too... idk. I've only taken French in an academic setting for 5 years)  
> Euh, je peux pas, mon ami ici m’a appris. = Eh, I don't know, my friend here taught me.  
> Ami? De ton équipe? = Friend? From your team?  
> À Samwell, ouais. = At Samwell, yeah. 
> 
> Also a note on the comment about blondes and chums: chum is Quebecois slang for 'boyfriend' and blonde is Quebecois slang for 'girlfriend'. Not sure if that's still a thing now since language is ever-evolving but the internet told me so yeah.
> 
> I'm on [tumblr](http://omgkatsudonplease.tumblr.com/) if you wanna flail some more!


End file.
